Norman Spinrad - The Iron Dream

To the north, wave after wave of Helder dreadnaughts pounded the advancing Zind horde. The pilots had reported that this gargantuan force outnumbered even the huge Holder army by almost ten to one. Although the Helder planes had blasted every last Zind aerial dreadnaught from the sky and ranged over the forces of Zind at will, vast formations of the mutated flyers hovered over the horde like swarms of huge venomous insects. In addition to the usual Warriors, war-wagons, and dreadnaughts, the scout planes had spotted several hundred tanks, Puller-drawn artillery, and vast troops of Warriors who seemed somehow different from the usual variety. Truly, the hosts of Zind were on the move in unprecedented force; upon the coming battle would hinge the future of the world for all time.

The first rays of dawn illumined a ghastly landscape.

Here nothing grew but scraggly and putrescent patches of radiation jungle. Huge ponds had been dug in the unyielding, contaminated earth; these were choked with slimy gray-green scum which no doubt was processed for slave fodder. The reek of these algae pools was overpowering, indistinguishable from that of open cesspools. Among these ponds were scattered rude wooden corrals which confined a revolting assortment of genetically twisted livestock: bloated legless swine wriggling about in the muck like giant pallid worms, six-legged cattle with tiny vestigial heads and cloacae from which dribbled green-brown ooze, hairless purple goats that trailed gross blue udders in the mud, chickens with a syrupy coating of viscous green mucous in lieu of feathers.

The slaves tending this perverted travesty of farmland more than fit their surroundings; a more revolting collection of mutants it had never been Feric’s misfortune to see. Here such as Parrotfaces, Toadmen, and dwarfs stood out as paragons of genetic virtue! Skinless creatures covered with red ooze through which bluish blood vessels could be seen pulsing were a common sight as were green bipeds with empty insect-eyes and arms ending in clusters of tentacles. Warted, frog-skinned mutants with flapping rubbery lips abounded as well as perambulating mounds of wiry black hair through which naught was visible save flaming red eyes and lipless drooling mouths.

Despite the importance of time, Feric slowed the Helder advance in order to assure that every last one of these abominations was blasted to bits, burned, or mashed beneath the treads of the tanks and every putrid scum-pond blown sky-high with purifying explosives.

Only when his tank had left this ghastly farmland and entered a rolling plain of lifeless gray desolation, did Feric feel clean again. “I can scarcely believe that such horrors exist even in Zind,” he said to Best. “How do the Dominators stand themselves?”

Best’s face was pale, his lips trembling. “I can’t imagine, my Commander,” he said grimly. “My very cells cry out in nausea at such a sight.”

“Enough!” Feric said. “Let’s put an end to this filth once and for all. Head due north. Best! It’s time to confront the putrescence of Zind with the full might of the Helder army!”

Soon the northern horizon glowed with orange flame along a wide front, and an immense pall of dust and dense black smoke hung over the dead gray hills like a monster thunderhead, replete with the flickering lightnings of the falling bombs. No doubt the Zind horde had spotted the dust cloud of the approaching Helder army—the two mighty juggernauts were at last within sight of each other.

As the wall of Helder armor hurtled toward the onrushing Zind horde, a spotter plane continuously broadcast updated coordinates, and the earth shook with the rumble of the tank cannon as wave after wave of high-explosive shells ripped through the leaden sky to smash the enemy.

Zind shells came crashing down in the midst of the Helder army, blowing tanks apart in sudden bursts of bright flame and metal fragments, filling the air with-bits of pulverized motorcycles. Now the Helder dive-bombers were clearly visible over the ridgeline, dropping almost perpendicularly at incredible speeds, letting fly with their deadly cargo, then zooming upward beyond reach of the resulting explosions. Hundreds of these magnificent dreadnaughts filled the sky—diving, swooping, soaring, raining death on the enemy like avenging eagles.

“Here it comes. Best!” Feric shouted, getting his first sight of the enemy. Out of the north soared a huge flock of nearly a hundred of the Zind flying monstrosities, their membranous wings glistening wetly, with a dozen Helder planes in hot pursuit, machine guns blazing. In moments, the aerial battle was directly overhead. Acid dribbled down from the creatures’ bloated sacs, sending clouds of choking yellow smoke into the air where it touched the metal of the tanks. Flyers crumpled and exploded in midair as the fiery bullets of the Helder planes ripped them to pieces.

But there was no leisure to contemplate the battle in the air, for in the next moment, the great horde of Zind was visible hurtling straight toward the onrushing Helder armor; Best cried out in wordless awe tinged with something akin to terror.

The army of Zind filled Feric’s field of vision from east to west and covered the gray desolation to the north as far as the eye could see. A skirmish line of giant muscular Warriors backed up by reserve ranks that seemed literally infinite marched forward along a front too wide to display end points; interspersed in this front line of ten-foot giants were dull green tanks not dissimilar to the Helder design.

Behind the front, thousands of war-wagons were drawn along by Pullers amidst a solid sea of Warriors marching along in that daunting Zind unison. Dimly visible far to the rear behind Puller-drawn artillery, trucks, and steam dreadnaughts were huge swarms of Warriors that seemed to be moving forward with simultaneous randomness and overall direction like soldier ants. The sky above this monstrous horde was thick with Helder planes and Zind flyers; boiling clouds of thick black smoke were everywhere. Patches of the horde were huge flaming infernos; vast numbers of uncontrolled Warriors ripped and surged mindlessly through the rear ranks of the enemy. From the war-wagons, tanks, dreadnaughts, and artillery came a continuous barrage of shells that began to take their toll of the Helder tanks at this close range.

As the two armies closed to within a hundred yards of each other, Feric saw that Best’s face was frozen into a determined battle mask. “Spread out!” he ordered his tank commanders; the gaps between the Helder tanks widened and into them poured the vast divisions of motorcycle troops. Feric rammed home the stud of his machine gun and roared “Fire at will!” into his microphone as his weapon spurted fiery death at the onrushing horde. The tanks lowered their cannon and sent a final wave of high explosives into the front rank of the Zind horde, sending an avalanche of earth and flesh and metal fragments into the air.

Then the two armies were upon each other, a ringing clash of massed flesh and metal. The Zind battle tactic had not changed, save that the huge Warriors who marched forward in unison in wave after limitless wave were now armed with submachine guns. The wall of bullets into which the Helder army plunged chattered harmlessly off the armor of the tanks, but took a heavy toll of the motorcycle troops who roared at top speed straight into the fray, with heroic disregard for their own safety.

Flamethrowers inundated the marching Zind horde with flaming petrol; thousands of the creatures became shrieking torches who nevertheless surged forward to be smashed to pieces by the Helder machine guns and ground to a pulp beneath the treads of the tanks, helplessly loyal even in their terminal agonies to the psychic commands of the Dominators.